Walt Disney’s background in theater and live performance helped build his exceptional ability to command a room, pitch creative ideas, and tell compelling stories. In this workshop, students will explore improvisational theater: the art of creating original scenes and stories on the spot. Students...
The Touch Tour incorporates ten iconic objects from the museum’s main galleries—generously 3D-printed by Carbon—into an audio-descriptive tour, providing guests with visual impairments the opportunity to experience the museum’s collection through the enhanced experience of touch.
In this workshop, students will learn the history of Audio-Animatronics® technology during the early 1960s. This hands-on activity places students in the mindset of Disney Imagineers as they are challenged to collaboratively work in teams to navigate a Sphero SPRK robot. Through trial and error, using math-based calculations, and computer block programming, students will find solutions to make their machines function smoothly.
Walt Disney experimented with different mediums in his animated films. From watercolor to pointillism, the possibilities were endless and gave each movie a signature look. Join us as we create fun and unique art pieces using Pointillism, a painting technique involving small dots, patterns, and colored paints. Students will learn about Impressionism and gain a basic understanding of color filling, shading, and tints to create a cohesive art piece.
When creating theme parks, designers and architects apply their creative minds and technical ingenuity to design ambitious projects. Students will plan their own innovative theme parks using creative thinking, problem solving, and teamwork. They will create their theme park’s rides, shows, food options, and more all within their provided budget, and see if they can run a successful park!
The way we travel around the world—in trains, cars, planes, and rockets—has evolved over the past century as new innovations have developed. Join us as we explore various modes of transportation and its importance to Walt Disney, then using colors, shapes, and design basics, students will create their own scenes for two-dimensional trains and railcars.
The Walt Disney Studios pioneered storyboarding—an innovative way to convey an artist’s vision and the film’s story for those around them. Join us in this School Experience as we delve into timing, camera angles, camera shots, and how to plan out a visual project in a sequential and visual form. Students will then take on the role of a storyboard artist as they envision their own version of a scene from a script.
As Walt Disney pushed the boundaries of animated feature films, his team developed techniques and technology that further enhanced their films. One of these devices was the multiplane camera. This amazing piece of equipment is a large movie camera that photographs multiple layers of artwork stacked on panes of glass that can be moved to create the illusion of three-dimensional depth.
The Ink and Paint Department was an invaluable part of the animation process, especially with the addition of color to animated films. In this School Experience, students will learn about the relationship between colors, and how color theory utilizes both art and science in color mixing to achieve a particular visual effect.
Walt Disney was a storyteller whose characters captivated audiences through their unique personalities and distinct designs. Students will learn the fundamentals of character design through the use of shape language, silhouette, and personality traits, and uncover the creative process towards developing unique and memorable characters.
Walt Disney knew that at the heart of every animated film is a well-told story. Join us on this School Experience as we investigate the basics of narrative structure, establishing interesting and dynamic plots, and creating internal and external challenges that can impact a character’s journey. Students will then develop their own short story.
This fall, we are delighted to bring back one of our most celebrated original exhibitions: Awaking Beauty: The Art of Eyvind Earle. Co-curated by CEO of Eyvind Earle Publishing Ioan Szasz and museum Director of Collections and Exhibitions Marina Villar Delgado, Awaking Beauty explores the life and...
Young sea monster Luca is discontented with his quiet life under the waves. He meets Alberto, a fellow sea monster who reveals that, when dry, they take on human form. The two envision a life of freedom, riding a Vespa to explore the world above the water—but it's a world of humans who fear the...
In Disney Worldbuilders (2026), a new feature-length documentary from Academy Award®- and Emmy®-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks streaming August 20 on Disney+, some of Disney’s most influential storytellers reflect on the memories, moments and creative breakthroughs that shaped their work, tracing...
Students will learn and reflect on the tasks of Imagineers, who worked under Walt at WED Enterprises during the 1950s and 60s to imagine, research, design, and build some of Disney’s most iconic and revolutionary projects and park attractions. In this hands-on workshop, students will apply these concepts to collaboratively build a prototype ride, and creatively problem-solve challenges that may arise.
Animators often start their journey with a piece of paper, a pencil, and their own imagination. We will explore the traditional practices and principles of hand-drawn animation. With a few simple techniques, students will bring their drawings to life in the same way that animators in the 1930s did.
Before the use of cels, paper cut-out figures were a common form of animation. Join us as we create paper creations with simple shapes and designs using construction paper and glue, then animate our creations to make our own silent stop-motion short films.
Benefitting from embedded digital media content, this walk-through the museum brings Walt’s inspirational message to life. Classes learn about his early failures, the art of animation, storytelling principles, and the technological innovations that made classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) possible.
Background design is an important part of the storytelling process as it helps give context to the narrative by showing the world in which the characters live. Although not the main focus, backgrounds can amplify and fully immerse an audience. We will discuss industry-standard practices as students delve into perspective fundamentals. Students gain an understanding of overlap, depth, and atmospheric perspective, then apply these concepts to design a layered background.
Before flips books, stop-motion films, and computer animated movies, zoetropes were created as a form of animation technology from the early 1800s. A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion through a sequence of drawings. In this workshop, students will learn about the early forms of animation, illustrate their own drawings, and watch them come to life when seen through the zoetrope!